abstract:Adverse inference is a legal inference, adverse to the concerned party, drawn from silence or absence of requested evidence. It is part of evidence codes based on common law in various countries.
He declined to give evidence at his trial - a decision on which judge Charles Byers told the jury it could draw an adverseinference - but his defence counsel, Oliver Saxby, said his client suffered from two psychiatric conditions which meant he had been "a severely disordered individual at the time of the killing".